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Foreigners Urged To Leave Libya Amid Rising Violence

Foreigners Urged To Leave Libya Amid Rising Violence

By Imed Lamloum

Tripoli (AFP) — Egypt and several Western states urged their nationals to leave Libya amid spiraling violence after two weeks of fighting left 97 people dead and a warning by state-owned National Oil Corp of a major disaster after a fuel tank was hit.

Washington evacuated its embassy staff on Saturday, with Secretary of State John Kerry warning the mission had faced a “real risk” from fierce fighting between armed groups for control of Tripoli’s international airport.

Another 38 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in 24 hours of fighting between the army and Islamists in the eastern city of Benghazi, military, and medical officials said on Sunday, in a further sign of the chaos plaguing the North African nation.

The Tripoli clashes, the most violent since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, started with an assault on the airport by a coalition of groups, mainly Islamists, which has since been backed by fighters from third city Misrata.

The attackers are battling to flush out fellow former rebels from the hill town of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, who have controlled the airport for the past three years.

The health ministry said on Sunday the violence had killed 97 people, a toll based on casualty reports from eight public hospitals in the capital city and its suburbs.

More than 400 people were wounded.

Fighting was still raging, with explosions heard from early morning as militiamen battled around the airport.

State-owned National Oil Corp late Sunday warned of a major environmental and humanitarian catastrophe in the capital after a tank containing six million liters of fuel was hit by rocket fire in southern Tripoli and caught fire.

The tanks on the road leading to the airport hold a total of more than 90 million liters of fuel.

“There is a risk of a huge explosion which would cause damages in an area of between three and five kilometers,” NOC spokesman Mohamed Al-Hrari told private Al-Nabaa television.

The gas and oil ministry asked residents in the area on Facebook to leave immediately for security reasons.

Egypt’s foreign ministry said a rocket hit a house in Tripoli on Saturday, killing 23 people, including several Egyptians.

“There are 23 people dead after a Grad rocket fell on a house in Tripoli. Some of them are Egyptians, but we don’t know how many,” ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told AFP.

– Foreigners leaving –

Cairo called on “all Egyptian nationals in Tripoli and Benghazi to immediately leave and save themselves from this chaotic internal fighting”.

The foreign ministry said they should seek “safer areas in Libya or head to the Libya-Tunisia border”.

There were an estimated 1.5 million Egyptians in Libya before Kadhafi’s ouster. About two-thirds left during the war but many returned in 2012.

Also on Sunday, a British embassy convoy was fired on in a suspected attempted carjacking in western Tripoli. There were no casualties, a spokesman for London’s mission in Libya said.

“Shots were fired at our vehicles but they managed to drive on and leave the area,” Bob Phillipson said.

The violence prompted Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands to join Washington in urging their citizens to leave as soon as possible, after the United States pulled out its diplomatic staff under air cover on Saturday.

Belgium, Malta, Spain, and Turkey previously urged their nationals to leave.

Libya’s health ministry warned that foreigners leaving could cause a shortage of health workers, particularly since the Philippines ordered the departure of its citizens, 3,000 of whom were doctors and nurses in Libya, Tripoli said.

The airport has been closed since July 13 because of the clashes.

Libya’s interim government has warned that the fighting between those vying for control of the strategic airport threatened to tear the country apart.

In second city Benghazi, another 38 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in 24 hours of intense clashes between the army and Islamists.

A military source said the fighting erupted on Saturday when Islamist groups launched an assault on the headquarters of a special forces unit near the city centre, causing casualties among forces defending their barracks.

Benghazi’s main hospital said the bodies of 28 soldiers had been taken there in the past 24 hours, along with 50 wounded, while Al-Marj hospital, 60 miles to the east, spoke of two soldiers dead and 10 wounded.

A spokesman for the self-proclaimed Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, an alliance of Islamic and jihadist militia which has claimed a number of attacks on military bases in the area, said eight of its fighters were killed.

Near-daily clashes take place in Benghazi, parts of which have become strongholds for Islamist groups since Kadhafi’s overthrow.

AFP Photo/Mahmud Turkia

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Jordanian Ambassador To Tripoli Is Abducted

Jordanian Ambassador To Tripoli Is Abducted

By Nehal El-Sherif and Taylor Luck, McClatchy Tribune News

AMMAN, Jordan — Libyan gunmen seeking the release of an alleged al-Qaeda operative held in Jordan abducted Amman’s ambassador Tuesday in Tripoli, local media and Jordanian officials said.

Ambassador Fawaz al-Aytan’s motorcade came under attack from masked gunmen in two cars without licence plates, Libya’s official LANA news agency reported, quoting a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tripoli.

The gunmen seized al-Aytan, while his driver was hospitalized with two bullet wounds, the report said.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh urged the abductors to immediately release the envoy, citing al-Aytan’s “devoted service to Libya and the Libyan people.” According to a Jordanian Foreign Ministry official, Libyan authorities informed Amman late Tuesday that the kidnappers had demanded the release of Mohammed Saeed al-Dirsi, a Libyan national imprisoned in Jordan on terrorism charges since 2004.

“Our Libyan counterparts have informed us that a group claiming to be the kidnappers have contacted them and have pledged to release our ambassador unharmed in return for al-Dirsi,” the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media, told dpa.

Tripoli and Amman had previously entered negotiations in 2012 over the transfer of al-Dirsi, also known as Mohammed al-Nuss, an alleged al-Qaida operative whom Jordanian authorities arrested in late 2004 as he attempted to cross into Iraq.

Judeh’s statement noted that “the security situation is very difficult there,” but that Amman was working with Libyan authorities to secure al-Aytan’s release.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the abduction and called for the ambassador’s immediate release and for protection of other diplomats in Libya.

“The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that such acts are unjustifiable regardless of their motivations, whenever and by whomsoever committed,” the U.N. said.

The council stressed that the perpetrators of such acts must be brought to justice.

“The members of the Security Council called on the Libyan authorities to protect diplomatic and consular property and personnel, to respect fully their international obligations in this regard, and to work towards the safe release of the ambassador,” the statement said.

Libya’s caretaker leadership has been struggling to impose order since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled in 2011.

The North African nation’s prime minister-designate, Abdullah al-Thini, resigned Sunday, citing what he said was an attack on him and his family by a militia.

Former prime minister Ali Zeidan was briefly kidnapped last year. He was released with the help of militia fighters.

Five Egyptian diplomats were briefly abducted in January, as was a South Korean trade official.

In September 2012, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomatic workers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi.

AFP Photo/Ibrahim Chalhoub

Number Of Syria Refugees In Lebanon Passes 1 Million Mark

Number Of Syria Refugees In Lebanon Passes 1 Million Mark

Tripoli (Lebanon) (AFP) — More than a million people fleeing Syria’s war have registered as refugees in Lebanon, the UN said Thursday, with many living in misery in a tiny country overstretched by the crisis.

And the number is swelling by the day, with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) saying it registers 2,500 new refugees in Lebanon every day– more than one a minute.

At a crowded center in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, hundreds of refugees were seen on Thursday queuing to register.

Yehia, an 18-year-old from Homs, was identified by as the millionth refugee to be registered.

He told AFP he lives in a garage in Dinniyeh, near Tripoli, with his mother and two sisters.

His father, a carpenter, was killed by a sniper in 2011, six months after the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out.

“It is a disaster,” said Yehia. “My mother sold all her gold so we could pay the $250 (191 euros) monthly rent. We don’t know what will happen to us in the future.”

His main wish is to go back to school to finish his studies, which were interrupted by the war.

“The fact that there were one million Syrians before me who are going hungry, even dying here is very painful,” Yehia said sorrowfully.

The UNHCR says that Syrian refugees, half of them children, now equal a quarter of Lebanon’s resident population, warning that most of them live in poverty and depend on aid for survival.

UNHCR representative Ninette Kelly branded the one million figure as “a devastating marker.”

“Each one of these numbers represents a human life who, like us, have lives of their own, but who’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their family members, have lost their future,” she told reporters.

Kelly said Lebanon has become the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.

Lebanon “is literally staggering under the weight of this problem. Its social services are stressed, health, education, its very fragile infrastructure is also buckling under the pressure.”

The massive crisis is compounded by a spillover of the violence that has ravaged Syria for the past three years, with Lebanon experiencing frequent bombings and clashes even as it grapples with political deadlock and an economic downturn.

In a statement, UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres urged increased international action to help Lebanon deal with this “immense” and “staggering” crisis.

Social Affairs Minister Rachid Derbas also appealed for support, saying Lebanon “cannot carry this burden alone.”

The strain has been particularly felt in the public sector, with health and education services, as well as electricity, water and sanitation affected.

The humanitarian appeal for Lebanon “is only 14 percent funded,” even as the needs of a rapidly growing refugee population become ever more pressing, Kelly said.

The vast majority of refugee children are not attending school.

“The number of school-aged children is now over 400,000, eclipsing the number of Lebanese children in public schools. These schools have opened their doors to over 100,000 refugees, yet the ability to accept more is severely limited,” the UNHCR said.

Because of the dire economic situation their families endure, many children are now working. “Girls can be married young and the prospect of a better future recedes the longer they remain out of school,” it added.

Walid, a 22-year-old who shines shoes to scrape out a living in Tripoli, said: “Our situation is very sad, and we refugees really live from hand to mouth.”

Unlike Turkey and Jordan, which are also hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Lebanon has not set up official camps.

Alaa Ajam, owner of a foreign exchange shop in Tripoli, said “of course (the refugee crisis) is a burden… We are in solidarity with the Syrians, but like other countries we should have camps.”

Tens of thousands of families live in insalubrious informal settlements dotted around the country, many of them near the restive border with Syria.

The conflict has killed more than 150,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with half of the population estimated to have fled their homes.

©afp.com/Joseph Eid

Libyans Hold Protests Against Lack Of Security

Libyans Hold Protests Against Lack Of Security

TRIPOLI, Libya — Thousands of Libyans Friday took to the streets in several areas of the country, protesting a lack of security.

Protesters gathered outside the Mosque of al-Shohada (Martyrs) in the center of the capital of Tripoli, accusing the National Congress, the country’s highest authority and the interim government of failing to maintain security.

Libya has been hit by attacks on government buildings and security personnel since an armed revolt toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Protests also were staged in the volatile city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, which Thursday started a civil disobedience campaign against security deterioration.

“We give the National Congress and the interim government one week to take serious steps to re-establish security in the city or we will withhold all revenues from state institutions and channel them into boosting security,” head of Benghazi’s local council Mahmoud Burziza told reporters Friday.

Benghazi, the birthplace of the anti-Gadhafi uprising, has seen frequent attacks by armed groups on Libyan government officials and foreign interests.

In 2012, the U.S. ambassador and three Americans were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The North African country’s post-revolutionary rulers have been struggling to assert their authority, given the proliferation of weapons and militias since the ouster and killing of Gaddafi in October 2011.

AFP Photo/Gianluigi Guercia